Tractor season

These marchigiani farmers are a hardy bunch. They seem to do most of the work themselves – no hired hands, it seems, or at least none that we’ve seen. Just them and their tractors and harvesters and various sundry grinding agricultural machines ... and their fields.

These days they seem to be tilling the soil. At least, in my ignorance, it seems to be what they’re doing, and “tilling the soil” does have something of an informed sound to it. How do I know they’re tilling the soil? Well, I do actually see them, all around me, going up and down in their fields. But mostly I hear them. All day, in fact. With no break. It seems even pranza is skipped in these soil-tilling days.

Yes, they’re tough, these marchigiani farmers, enduring that chugging, buffeting, droning, humming, chinking, constant, incessant tractor sound, all day, up and down, up and down. Watching them has almost an entrancing effect, especially from a distance, as your eyes pull them on, trace their path ahead of them, willing them to go just that little bit faster, up and down, back and forth, up and down. And the chugging.

Last week they started the grape picking. Most of them apparently grow grapes for their own wine production and consumption – 400 liters seems to be a magic number around here. That’s probably because it equates to a bottle a day with a few extra for feste and visitors. No doubt their own hand-made wine tastes delectable after a day in the tractor seat – I know my bought wine does after a day listening to it. (This Bianchello del Metauro from the Fossombrone area, for instance, is quite exquisite after today’s tractoring, although it’s fast depleting itself.)

Last week our neighbours, Giuseppe and Fernando, seemed to be wrapping up their toil-silling antics on the two fields right next to and below our house. Their proximity made it all the more real for us – the up and down, the tractor hum, the sill-toiling. With those last two neatly, completely churned fields, I thought that was it. However, it seems I still have a little to learn about farming, since they started going over their work this week in the same fields – up and down, back and forth, accompanied by that familiar tractor refrain. Did they perhaps make a mistake? Can’t say that I’ve noticed one, it looks pretty well done to me. But there you have it – soiling the till obviously requires some rigour.

Now I’m wondering - with some trepidation - if they’re going to revisit the fields on the other side of the house …